The Super Bowl Of Marriage

Marriage is a sport.  Look at it this way. You have two teams, the groom and his family and friends and the bride and her family and friends.

The bride and the groom are the team captains in most cases. Sometimes you think it’s the bride’s mother directing the plays. I think she’s just the team coach.

One side makes a play. “Honey , will you come in the bedroom for a minute?” the groom asks coyly.

The bride replies, “I’m on the phone right now dear.” The bride has successfully blocked the play.

Divorce court is the Super Bowl of marriage.  The winners get all the money. The team captains already have the rings.

Who’s the big winner at the Super Bowl?  You think it’s the team that wins, but in reality, it’s the owners, the advertisers, and yes, the lawyers, because anywhere there is money involved, there are bound to be lawyers.

And in the Super Bowl of Marriage, the winner is . . . . . . you guessed it, the lawyers!

Marriage? Who’s Idea Was That, Anyway?

 For those of you who believe in marriage and/or in Adam and Eve, this may shock you. Do you really think that when humans evolved, a God person said “let there be pieces of paper to join these two together!” ?

 I can deal with the vows, because in any relationship both sides make promises, but all that legal stuff came about much later in time. The exchange of rings or camels or goats is fine with me.  It’s that piece of paper with bird track marks on it that gets me riled up.

 What does that piece of paper mean, anyway? I promise, you promise. Isn’t my word good enough? Who are these people who are in charge of my promises? Is there word better than mine?

 I, for one believe in evolution. In college I studied archaeology and anthropology. I was raised in a family where religion was something we experimented with. In my family, life was an experiment. My mother exposed us to as many different religions as she could find. She told us to learn all we could and make up our own minds. I did.

 Early man did not have paper on which to make those bird track marks. He didn’t have a building called a church or synagogue with a bunch of rules telling him how to live and breathe and think. He thought for himself.  He found a female and if she was willing they got together. I kind of think they did anyway, even if she wasn’t willing.

 Early humans did not have voice developed so it would have been hard for her to say, “Back off Jack!” Of course, she could have just smacked him. I like to think she was just as willing as he was. Humans today like to make each other feel good. I think they must have then too.

 How far back does marriage and religion go?  Marriage supposedly came about because of religion, right? So we have to delve into religion, a touchy subject with some, to find the origins of that piece of paper.

 We know from mucking about in excavations that early man didn’t do a lot of writing things down for a very long time. He had other things on his mind besides the cost of a tablet of paper and a pen and then the lawyer to make sure that his mate didn’t run off with his best club and the jackal skin she gave him on his birthday.

 Lets run forward in time for a bit. Now we have religion. Religion was started by man.

 Even the bible wasn’t written by God. It was written by several men.  Then several more got together and decided amongst themselves which stories, because that is all that they are, stories, should go in this book and be forever called, God’s Word.

 Do you think that if God was omnipotent he/she would need a church or a paper to remind us? God could just reach down from wherever and smack us on the back of the head every time we messed up.

 Man created churches. I think women created weddings or maybe it was florists who created them.

 I do know that a piece of paper does not protect me. I know that a piece of paper does not make someone love me forever. All that paper tells me is that some human somewhere thinks it’s ok for me to make love to and live with my significant other.

 I still don’t know, who’s idea this marriage thing was. If you find him or her, just reach over and smack ‘em up side the head for me, cause a lot of people are wasting a lot of time and money believing that what somebody else says is God’s own word.